


Unholy Yearning: A Brief Observation of Sacrilegious Yet Undeniable Chemistry

by foibles_fables



Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: During Canon, F/F, Humor, Jillian Salvius can't believe these nuns, oh., outside pov, s01e08: Proverbs 14:1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27625208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foibles_fables/pseuds/foibles_fables
Summary: Article by Dr. Jillian M. Salvius, Ph.D., submitted to the July 2020 issues ofScience,Nature, andBiblica. [chance of publication: 14%]Or, Jillian keeps a watchful eye on Ava and Beatrice as they train and gets way more than she bargained for.
Relationships: Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva
Comments: 58
Kudos: 244





	Unholy Yearning: A Brief Observation of Sacrilegious Yet Undeniable Chemistry

**Author's Note:**

> So! Background for this silly little thing. Some fine folks from the _Warrior Nun_ Discord have decided it would be fun to write the classic fanfiction _oh. OH._ epiphanies from multiple characters re: Ava and Beatrice's relationship. These will range in seriousness and genre, but I'm excited to kick it off with a little Jillian Salvius action! Look for more to come soon - let us know if you'd like to add to the eventual collection!
> 
> ~~I am so, so sorry for how ridiculous this is.~~

Dr. Jillian Salvius is nothing if not generous.

(Or, perhaps _nothing_ is too strong a word. Extremes, all of the _always_ and the _nevers_ , should be spoken of only cautiously with regards to nature - especially in her own business in creating manipulations and utter transcendences thereof.)

A red-ink revision, then, one neat slash through the unnecessary qualifier: Dr. Salvius is generous.

Better. Succinct, with no convolutions. No room for those. Clarity in speech, clarity in mind. Clarity carries essentiality. Jillian would certainly be _something_ , something curious and decisive and determined and sharp, even if she was not generous.

Of course, it’s decidedly not generosity that drives her. No respectable- well, _successful_ tech entrepreneur-CEO is a veritable humanitarian. Arq-Tech was not built on niceties and gentle bowing. No, there’s cutthroat involved at every level. The bounties transpiring from stepping on and over others begins during undergraduate internships and persists all the way to the flashbulbs and plush chairs of the very top. Contrary to that banal old phrase, every single one of Jillian’s actions exists to serve her own ends. Contradictions abound!

Or do they?

Self-interest does not preclude charity. The two can and do coexist. The many facets of altruism’s truth can be debated in any number of arenas, but the general idea stands. This isn’t evo-bio, this isn’t Philosophy 101, this isn’t pure reciprocity. But this is _in helping others, you help yourself_.

Or, better, the reverse: _helping yourself can help others, too_.

(Constant edits in her mind - mental flexibility is key.)

It’s all so absurdly simple. Take the neural interfacing work; a prime example of this roundabout altruism. With each new innovation, like the neural net wheelchair, or hefty donation to a philanthropic organization (in either product or cash) comes a sequence of obvious choices to maximize the rigorous and righteous toil’s returns. It all starts with a lavish PR party, with the planning always left in the hands of more meticulously frivolous geniuses than Jillian. Splurging on the fancy caviar and top-shelf booze brings heaps of press. Heaps of full-bellied press means prime photo opportunities, sympathetic and enthusiastic interviews, longform articles in _Wired_. Longform articles in _Wired_ circle around into a deluge of funding.

A deluge of funding eventually trickles into stabilizing the Higgs field for a full minute.

Stabilizing the Higgs field means everything. Jillian sees reflections of her Michael’s sweet eyes and nothing is too little or too much for it. For him, and a chance at beyond.

Jillian’s own ends launch the inexplicable into fathomability. For others, for self. For the world here and for the ones peering in through quantums, just out of her reach (for now).

And Jillian’s ends are the precise reason why a gaggle of nuns is running amok all over her laboratories.

 _I need a place to train_. Certainly, Ava, just not in my refurbished lobby, by god.

 _We’ve been kicked out of our homes!_ Of course they have the one with the sweetest little face dole out the thick-throated, brimming-eyed lamentations.

 _We’ll also need bricks to construct solid barriers of various thickness, four to twenty feet_. And that one’s much too smart for her own good, too smart entirely for that habit.

But Jillian will open spaces to them, she’ll damn the Vatican with them. She’ll _call her brick guy_ , as Ava so eloquently put it, and wish them luck. She’ll loan Kristian’s brain out to the reticent priest and the nun (or nun-adjacent, it’s somewhat unclear) who seems to gaze at everything with deep-lurking anger. She’ll dispense technology - next-gen tablets, GPS tracking beacons, the most powerful and sensitive bluetooth communicators she can get her hands on - like penny candy. She’ll even help to care for their friend: yet _another_ nun who seems to have materialized from the air or sprung up from the ground, dehydrated and disoriented.

All for the Divinium. For what flows through her child’s veins, for what will carry him from here. For those bones, or the possibility of them. For her own ends. For the ark - for a dying child. _Her_ dying child. For Michael. Every single one of her actions exists to serve her own ends.

Help others, help self.

A reiteration before the observation: Dr. Salvius is generous.

But she’s certainly not _stupid_.

That’s what the security cameras are for. Jillian is generous, but she’ll keep them under close watch.

Particularly because the sharp one - she’s quite _petite_ , too, isn’t she? - somehow gives the distinct impression that she can handle a staff.

Late afternoon, fourth cup of coffee (cutting back is hell) and Jillian watches Ava and the vaguely familiar nun working in the lab, from the comfort of her office. She’s kept watch over them on her tablet periodically throughout the day - peeking in on Ava disappearing into and reappearing from four, eight, twelve, sixteen feet of concrete. Always reemerging looking rather bewildered, wide-eyed, and quite sweaty. Despite everything, it truly is fascinating to watch with purely scientific interest. The transcendence of nature, again. Atomic transmutation and instantaneous phase shifts. It _boggles_. There’s no napkin quantum physics to be done here. The power of that _object_ , interred in the nervous system of a teenager. It’s nothing like observing it up-close, like that stolen chance before. But something is better than nothing.

Ava ran into some panicked difficulty on a few of the latter embarkings, and Jillian herself had intervened. _Help others_ , even when the offered help is rejected (with a few not-so-gracious words involving Yuletide decorations) _._ While amping up the Halo again would have worked, Ava and the smart one must have found something in its stead. Maybe a key to progress, maybe a simple _pep talk_ of sorts. (Suppressing a roll of the eyes feels full of grace.)

Because right now, Ava is deeply mired in twenty feet of brick, the nun is tracking her alongside, and Jillian is observing all of it in comfortable faraway secrecy.

The Sister pauses her slow footsteps and addresses the concrete. Speaking to Ava like some unseen voice from above. Calmly, it looks like, but with sure meaning. Gaze intent, intense, but gentle. Another nun-like rallying speech. Jillian has to wonder how many references to _our Lord in Heaven_ come with that particular territory. She sips from her mug, biting back the flash of warm-bellied superiority.

The intercessions to Saint Whomever must work, because the young nun’s eyes widen, cautiously brighten. She floats with urgency to the terminal end of the concrete, coaching, waiting, glancing between the gray wall and the tablet with careful excitement.

Jillian holds her breath. She’s not embarrassed for being just a slight bit invested. This is interesting, after all, and for her own benefit in the end.

In a flash of impossible physics and an awkward flurry of limbs, Ava all but flails from the wall, feet tangling. Momentum carries her directly into the nun and then takes both of them to the floor, a slow, sloppy descent to kneeling.

And Jillian catches every nuance of what happens next. She’s a scientist, after all, expert by very definition in objective observation.

Clear on the screen, both young women look ecstatic, overcome with near-disbelief. They’re both laughing, both grinning. _Beaming,_ even. Exchanging silent (to Jillian) exhilarated exclamations. Hands on faces, _both_ of their hands on faces, easy and trembling. Cradling. Stilling. _Staring._ Turning into something else entirely. The camera nearly catches something wisping between them, something that might have shown a trace if more sensitive controls were enabled. Waveform signatures, pheromone exchange, buildups and breakdowns in any number of chemicals. Jillian should _really_ be writing this in her lab notebook. The nun strokes Ava’s face. Mesmerized. Singular shared gaze smolders. The zeroth law. Thermal equilibrium. All heat is the same kind. Everything looks breathless and soft and...yearning.

Oh. _Oh_.

Jillian nearly chokes on her coffee, sputtering it back into the cup, mindful of staining her white jumpsuit.

The disarmingly tender moment passes. Ava and her nun _friend_ have broken free from the grips of the tension, looking at anything but each other, coming down from the sudden sparks. In the solitude of her office, Jillian chuckles out loud, fingertips to her lips, half-scandalized and altogether amused.

She had been hoping for Divinium. She hadn’t been betting on _entertainment_.

Just a bit of chemistry happening in her lab. That’s not exactly a first - but it’s a first involving an abstinent member of the clergy, at least. Every day, a new experience. This is why she became a scientist in the first place: to watch the world’s never-ceasing wonders unfold and develop.

There’s no judgement, of course. No value assignment. Science is impartial.

But while Jillian is an expert observer, she’s not a _voyeur_. That was just some Schrödinger-esque brand of yearning, and observation changes outcomes. She can give the girls some privacy to work through whatever just manifested between them. They’re not getting into any trouble. (Not _yet_.)

With a smirk, she switches off the tablet and drains the last bit of coffee from her mug.

Dr. Salvius is generous.

**Author's Note:**

> Love to hear what you think, even for this silly thing. Any kind of love is appreciated! Hold strong Halo Bearers, season two is coming! As always, hit me up on Twitter or tumblr if you wanna catch my life's chaos and ramblings up close.


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